Power To The Players Act Proposed
Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York's 15th congressional district has introduced the Power To The Players Act. This new legislation aims to protect consumers by directing the FTC to establish regulations on game ownership to curb anti-consumer business practices. Under the bill, buying a video game would give the consumer ownership of the game rather than a license to play it, and games with online functionality would be required to provide an offline mode before supporting servers are shut down.
Industry Practices and Legal Precedent
Games having an expiration date despite rising prices has drawn scrutiny from players worldwide. Rep. Torres follows Pennsylvania state senator John Kane, who recently introduced the Protect Our Games Act requiring publishers to provide an offline mode, community servers, or a minimum refund. Players want continued access even after publisher support ends, contrasting with corporate legal stances asserting that digital purchases constitute revocable use licenses rather than durable ownership rights.
Server Closures and Lost Access
Prominent examples of lost access include Ubisoft shutting down The Crew in 2024, making the online-only racing title entirely unplayable. Similarly, yearly sports titles such as NBA 2K25 are being pulled from storefronts and stripped of server support only two years after release, preventing new purchases and disabling core features for existing buyers.
Legislation and the Stop Killing Games Movement
These shutdowns fueled the Stop Killing Games movement, which demands functional offline modes, peer-to-peer patching, and community server hosting. Concrete definitions for the new bill remain pending, but its framework seeks to mandate offline modes ahead of server closures and secure actual consumer ownership.
Industry debates continue around digital rights management and consumer protections, with critics arguing that restrictive licenses drive players toward unauthorized alternatives. The proposed legislation marks a notable policy step toward addressing longevity and consumer rights in modern software distribution.
